31 Meditations for Advent and Christmas
"The King Who is to come; O come let us adore Him."
12th Day: THE PUNISHMENT OF REBELLION
"The King Who is to come; O come let us adore Him."
12th Day: THE PUNISHMENT OF REBELLION
The just and holy God cannot allow a single
act of rebellion against Jesus Christ our King to
go unpunished. Even if the rebel submits, some
punishment must be inflicted. But what if he does
not submit?
The sentence passed upon every such rebel is perpetual banishment from the presence of the King--"Depart from Me, ye cursed." This sentence implies misery through all eternity, for to be deprived of God, when we have once appreciated, even in the faintest degree, His infinite beauty, will fill the heart of the exile with such a continual longing after Him, that the consciousness that this longing will never be satisfied, will fill him with remorse, dismay, terror, self-reproach, hopelessness, despair. O my God, grant that I may never be separated from Thee!
To the sentence of banishment is added the King's anathema--"ye cursed." The curse of God carries with it every possible misfortune. It blights a man's whole being. All his faculties are to him sources of pain instead of pleasure. The senses, instead of admitting to his soul that which causes it satisfaction, will only admit what is a cause of pain. The memory will call up all that is horrible --the intellect will be deprived of truth; and the heart of peace, of love, while hatred, hatred of all the world, hatred of self will take its place. May I, through God's mercy, never fall under the curse of our King.
Besides all this, the body will suffer its own punishment, and that punishment will be the pain of burning, of all pains the one that we most dread. "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." May this thought help me to have a whole- some fear of any sort of rebellion, and of all that leads to it.
The sentence passed upon every such rebel is perpetual banishment from the presence of the King--"Depart from Me, ye cursed." This sentence implies misery through all eternity, for to be deprived of God, when we have once appreciated, even in the faintest degree, His infinite beauty, will fill the heart of the exile with such a continual longing after Him, that the consciousness that this longing will never be satisfied, will fill him with remorse, dismay, terror, self-reproach, hopelessness, despair. O my God, grant that I may never be separated from Thee!
To the sentence of banishment is added the King's anathema--"ye cursed." The curse of God carries with it every possible misfortune. It blights a man's whole being. All his faculties are to him sources of pain instead of pleasure. The senses, instead of admitting to his soul that which causes it satisfaction, will only admit what is a cause of pain. The memory will call up all that is horrible --the intellect will be deprived of truth; and the heart of peace, of love, while hatred, hatred of all the world, hatred of self will take its place. May I, through God's mercy, never fall under the curse of our King.
Besides all this, the body will suffer its own punishment, and that punishment will be the pain of burning, of all pains the one that we most dread. "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." May this thought help me to have a whole- some fear of any sort of rebellion, and of all that leads to it.